Learn all you need to know about the EDH Commander format of Magic the Gathering

EDH Commander Generals List

List of EDH / Commander Generals

Here is a full list of suitable EDH Generals for your EDH Deck. Most of these Legendary creatures are Multi Colored because mono colored generals have a big disadvantage due to deck rules. This list contains the best possible EDH Generals. (if I missed any let me know in the comment section.) Use this EDH Generals list to find new strategies or a new general for a new EDH deck.

EDIT: I made a new page for just mono green commanders with the whole list but I want to make a top 15 for the mono green commanders feel free to chime in. I plan on doing the same thing with the other colors and color combinations as well.

Mono Blue EDH Generals

Arcanis the Omnipotent is a good Mono Blue EDH General to keep your hand full. Drawing three cards every turn would give you good card advantage over your opponents. Because of this draw advantage you can keep counter spells in your hands at all times fairly easy.

Barrin, Master Wizard

Barrin, Master Wizard

Barrin, Master Wizard is another mono blue General. I added him in the list because I think there could be some interesting combos/ strategies to use with this commander. One combo could be with Gilded Drake. You could steal your opponent’s creatures then sacrifice their creature to return Gilded Drake to your hand. You could continue this process until you kill all your opponents’ creatures.

Braid, Conjurer Adept is another contending General for a mono blue deck. With this general you can play Eldrazi like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as soon as turn 4 if you get an early on Sol Ring or signet out. The only problem with this Commander is that your opponents get to play any card as well. The good thing about being mono blue is you can just bounce your opponent’s creatures back to the opponent’s hand with cards like Wash Out.

With Lu Xun, Scholar General you can focus on doing 21 Commander damage as well as drawing cards. This General would have a similar strategy to Cao Ren, Wei Commander except Lu Xun is mono blue with a better ability. You can pump up Lu Xun to do a lot of commander damage and you can get an added bonus of drawing a card. I do not like Lu Xun, Scholar General as much for mono blue because there are not many options to beef up your commander as there would be with the other mono colored commanders but there is still potential and you can beef up Lu Xun with equipment cards.

Talrand, Sky Summoner

Talrand, Sky Summoner

Tarland, Sky Summoner has great synergy in a mono blue deck. Tarland’s ability comes naturally with instants and sorcery cards to draw, counter, tutor, and cards to bounce back cards to your opponents hands. With this commander you can control the entire game all while making tokens and swinging at your opponents with Drake tokens.

Memnarch

Memnarch

Thanks to Memnarch’s ability cost of Memnarch can be used with mono blue. With Memnarch’s abilities you can steal any permanent for 4 total cost. Once you steal your opponents permanents and turn them into artifacts you can use Darksteel Forge to make all you permanents indestructible including your opponents!

Mono Black EDH Generals

I put Lim-Dul in this EDH generals list because I love his ability! You can steal creatures from other people graveyards? Sign me up! There are drawbacks of course, the casting cost of 5 is high but is easily attainable with black mana acceleration. Another drawback with Lim-Dul the Necromancer being a General is that Lim-Dul is mono black. With my experience playing EDH format having a multicolored deck gives players quite an advantage with color versatility. Also, with a mono black EDH deck you would not stand a chance against someone playing Animar, Soul of Elements as Animar’s protection from black would really make life difficult.

Cao Ren, Wei Commander would be a decent commander because it has the Horsemanship ability. “702.29b A creature with horsemanship can’t be blocked by creatures without horsemanship. A creature with horsemanship can block a creature with or without horsemanship.” Horsemanship basically makes Cao Ren, Wei Commander unblockable therefor it would be easy to pump this commander up with cards like Lashwrithe to do 21 commander damage.

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief is a good commander for two reasons. One reason is with its ability to you can pump it up and it has flying so you have a chance to do some good commander damage to your opponent. The other reason Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief is a good commander because you can destroy your opponent’s creatures at the same time you make him stronger. To take full advantage of his ability you would need help from Cabal Coffers, Nirkana Revenant, and Extraplanar Lens to make sure your mana pool is efficient to kill multiple opponents creatures!

Mono White EDH Generals

Commander Eesha would use a similar strategy as Cao Ren, Wei Commander. Because it has protection from creatures it is unblockable. You can use Stoneforge Mystic to search for equipment cards to beef it up and do 21 commander damage quickly.

Crovax, Ascendant Hero

Crovax, Ascendant Hero

Crovax, Ascendant Hero will strengthen your soldier army while weakening your opponents. To be honest if you like this ability I think Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is a better option. I did include Crovax, Ascendant Hero in this EDH Generals list because of his third ability that sets him apart from Elesh Norn, which is “Pay 2 Life: Return Crovax, Ascendant Hero to it’s owners hand.” This ability makes Crovax more reliable then Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite to keep out in play. The downfall of using Crovax as General would be that Crovax would not add anything to your deck if you are playing against someone playing all white.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite abilities give your creatures a huge advantage with power and toughness because of this it would make for a great General. This could ruin some of your opponents strategies from playing any 2/2 creatures it could make life very difficult against someone playing an Animar, Soul of Elements deck. Not only this but many white creatures have a low power and toughness. If you have a 2/2 soldier out with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite your soldier can now overpower your opponents 5/5 wurms.

Darien, King of Kjeldor is a good General to make your opponents think twice before attacking. I love the ability of putting 1/1 tokens into play when you opponents do damage. This ability matches up nicely with True Conviction you can let you opponents do damage to you and you can comeback twice as hard and gain more life then you had before which puts your opponents a stalemate. Your opponents would either have to wipe the board or kill you in one shot.

Mono Green EDH Generals

If you are going to build a mono colored deck Omnath, Locus of Mana would be a great General. With Omnath’s ability your mana pool will never empty making your mana use very flexible. Because it gets a +1/+1 for each mana in your mana pool you can easily beef it up. Green mana ramp works great for this deck. You can make Omnath more powerful by adding mana to your mana pool and you can use your mana flexibility to save up to put out BIG creatures fairly quickly, Eldrazi anyone?

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is a good commander to slow your opponents down by destroying lands with cards like Ulvenwald Tracker or Thornbite Staff. Kamahl is also awesome to do some heavy damage with tokens and creature damage too of course. With most green decks mana can add up quickly with cards like Mana Reflection a long with cards like Cultivate you can use all of this extra mana to give ALL your creatures +6/+6 easily along with trample to do serious damage.

Mono Red Commanders

Krenko, Mob Boss

Krenko, Mob Boss

Thanks to Krenko, Mom Boss, goblins are not just reckless and awesome in standard play they are also very playable in EDH. Goblins are great because they are fast and low cost. With Krenko, Mom Boss in the Command Zone you can quickly make a token army to overwhelm your opponents!

Multi Colored EDH Generals

This is one of my favorite Generals. With Rhys the Redeemed you can double your tokens every turn! This is a great general if you love token decks. There are a lot of combos with this General that can help you abuse his ability and make a token army. Check out my Rhys the Redeemed Deck.

Kaalia of the Vast

Kaalia of the Vast

This General is good playing head to head, 1v1 EDH format. Kaalia is fun to play because you can put out some monster creatures as fast as turn 4 or 5. Since you can put out creatures with out paying mana, you can destroy all lands using Armageddon to slow down your opponents. Check out my Kaalia of the Deck for a better idea of what cards work well in Kaalia’s Strategy.

This is a Great commander if you want to play with slivers. Sliver decks pretty much figure themselves out as the deck would be mostly slivers. The strategy is pretty set but you have an opportunity to play all colors and really broaden what your deck can do.

Sliver Overlord is similar to Sliver Queen. Good commander to play with slivers but get the luxury of being able to use all five colors. This card maybe a better option for a Sliver deck because you can search for whatever sliver you need.

Animar, Soul of Elements

Animar, Soul of the Elements

Animar is an interesting General to play. Animar has protection from both black and white making it hard to kill. Animar’s ability to lower creature’s mana cost while beefing itself up give this general a huge advantage. There are several combos and strategies that work with Animar. These combos involve bouncing creatures back and replaying them. This General makes for a good deck but you have to have patience as turns can be frustratingly long.

Aurelia, the Warleader

Aurelia, the Warleader

Aurelia, the Warleader is a great card and would make a great general. I am not sure what the deck build would look like, but Auelia, the Warleader is a great combo with Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. With both Angels out you can have double the attack phases and double the damage! Gisela, Blade of Goldnight would be another good commander as well. Gisela cost only one more mana to play then Aurelia but part of the cards ability halves the damage you and permanents you control take.

Ertai, the Corrupted

Ertai, the Corrupted

Ertai, the Corrupted has good colors and at the very least you would be able to counter one spell a turn. You could play cards to untap your creature and use tokens to sacrifice for the cost. This General could certainly make life irritating for your opponent.

This General is good to not only copy abilities of your own creatures but your opponent’s creatures as well. Why not steal their General’s ability and use it as your own?

Kaervek the Merciless

Kaervek the Merciless

I like Kaervek the Merciless because as they say “sometimes a good defense is the best offense.” You can take out your opponent’s life points or destroy their creatures as they play spells. Unfortunately, I do not think this would be a good general because it would take too long to get out.

Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Karador, Ghost Chieftain has a high casting cost, which should be easily attainable with green mana acceleration and by putting creatures in the graveyard. A Karador, Ghost Chieftain EDH deck would work great with Buried Alive, discarding cards, and sacrificing creatures around the board. The only thing you would have to look out for is graveyard removal, which will be your worst enemy.

Maelstrom Wanderer

Maelstrom Wanderer

Maelstrom Wanderer would be a fun General to play. Maelstrom has a high casting cost but would be easily attainable with green mana acceleration. Maelstrom Wanderer would be a great General to pump out big creatures with haste using its cascade ability. You can use cards like Snap to bounce Maelstrom back to your hand to take full advantage of his ability. You could potentially put out an army of big creatures with Maelstrom in one turn, then attack since it gives all creatures haste!

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

Prossh is one of the strongest EDH generals so much I won’t be surprised if it gets banned. Not only can you get an easy infinite token combo with Food Chain you can even do infinite damage combo when Purphoros, God of the Forge is added in. Sure 0/1 tokens may not be much but match them up with Shared Animosity you have 6 6/7 tokens out the first time you play Prossh.

Numot, the Devastator is a great General, if you want to take all the fun out of the game by destroying everyone’s lands. You could literally put a bunch of counter spells in your deck to delay the game until you get Numot, the Devastator out. Then you can just destroy your opponent’s lands to stop them from doing anything. I don’t advise destroying lands as it does take the fun away from the game if you are playing casually but it would be a competitive EDH general.

Olivia Voldaren

Olivia Voldaren

Olivia Voldaren is a great EDH General because you can beef it up by pinging creatures. Then you can steal your opponent’s creatures by using its second ability! It only takes 2BR to put out so it would be easy to play. Because Olivia Voldaren has flying you could potentially win just from commander damage.

The casting cost for this General is high but could easily be done with green ramping. Sisters of Stone Death is awesome! As long as you have the mana you can remove your opponent’s creatures from the game! Then on top of removing your opponent’s creatures you can steal them, at any time! With Sisters of Stone Death’s abilities you would not take any combat damage at all as long as you have the mana open. If you gave this general shroud or protection it would put you in a very good position.

If you want to build an EDH mill deck Szadek, Lord of Secrets is not a bad EDH General to have. However, there are other options for Legendary creatures with this mill type build.

The Mimeoplasm

The Mimeoplasm

I love BUG colored decks, The Mimeoplasm is a good General if you want to use these colors and he can also do some serious damage. A deck with this build is fun to use with [/card]Reanimate[/card] and Buried Alive combos. You can use the strength and abilities of creatures from your graveyard or your opponents graveyard and could potentially do some good commander damage. Another good commander for a BUG deck that I do not have listed here is Damia, Sage of Stone which is a good commander to make sure you hand is always full.

Vela the Night-Clad

Vela the Night-Clad

Give all your creatures intimidate while your General has intimidate itself. Playing against a red, white, and/or green deck? Easy commander damage. You can pump Vela the Night-Clad up and do 21 commander damage in no time. On top of that you can use a sac and token outlet to do damage to ALL of your opponents.

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter

This General has some good versatile abilities to pump itself up and weaken your opponents creatures. Because it has flying and you can pump it up, you have a good chance of winning by doing 21 commander damage. This general could also could help you out if you are low on life because it has Lifelink.

Vorel of the Hull Clade

Vorel of the Hull Clade

This general has an awesome low cost ability. You can make a great deck with creatures, artifacts, or lands that use counters. This General can add counters on all of your creatures which can add up quickly with Doubling Season out. You can use this ability EVERY TURN and it only costs to use! The ability works well with creatures like Fathom Mage and maybe Triskelion

I like this general because Red and Green is a power house. Then you can copy those power house instant or sorcery spells using Wort’s ability. How awesome would it be to copy Tooth and Nail and put a bunch of big creatures out into play in one turn?

Zur the Enchanter would be a fun general to play. You can put out any Enchantment you need whenever you need it when Zur attacks. You could have an answer in your deck for almost every move your opponent makes. For instance, If you don’t want your opponents playing their commander put Nevermore into play. You could really make your opponents life difficult with this commander.

Adun Oakenshield colors are great colors to make a deck strategy around Adun’s ability. You can make a sac outlet with a card like Attrition then sac a creature like Thragtusk and bring it back to your hand. With Thragtusk you could get a Beast Token and gain life every turn. You could also use this strategy with Rune-Scarred Demon and just about any creature that has an ability when it comes into play or leaves play.

Angus Mackenzie would be a great EDH General because it can prevent all combat damage. You can attach a Darksteel Plate to Angus Mackenzie to make it harder for your opponent to kill. This strategy could buy you time to clear the board with Wrath of God and surprise attack your opponents with Swiftfoot Boots and Serra Avatar or another big surprise attack to defeat your opponent. This deck seems like it would be better for 1v1 EDH because since the ability taps your commander you can only use it once per turn.

Captain Sisay would be a good commander to help get all of your legendary creatures or Legendary lands. You could get out Gaea’s Cradle easily as well as Rhys the Redeemed other great green or white legendary cards.

Child of Alara would be an interesting EDH General and with its casting cost you will be able to play all the colors in your deck. You could use a sac outlet like Krark-Clan Ironworks to clear the board. Then you can use Twilight Shepherd and reanimation cards to bring your creatures back after you clear the board. You can keep bringing Child of Alara back to clear the board whenever necessary.

Ghave, Guru of Spores

Ghave, Guru of Spores

Ghave, Guru of Spores is an awesome commander to either make tokens or sacrifice tokens to beef it up. There are a lot of combos that go well with this commander such as just adding in Doubling Season. You can double your tokens then double your counters for as long as you have the mana to do so. Then you can add in Earthcraft for an infinite combo. This deck build maybe similar too that of Rhys of the Reedemed except you can play black making this commander more versatile With cards like Blood Artist you can use your tokens to do direct damage and gain life.

Intet, the Dreamer is a great EDH Commander to play high mana costing spells. Because it has blue in the casting cost you can reorder how you draw using cards like Brainstorm and Index to put your higher costing cards into play with out paying the casting cost. The red and green attribute are good so you can put big creatures and other spells into the EDH deck.

Jhoira of Ghitu uses a suspend ability to make it easier to play bigger spells like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth at the beginning of the game. This is a good commander because you can give any card suspend at any time for only 2 mana. The ability also allows you to keep your mana untapped to play counter spells against your opponent or just use flash and instant spells at the end of your opponents turn. I think Jhoira of the Ghitu would be a best suited commander for playing 1v1.

Kresh the Bloodbraided could be a very powerful EDH commander. You can run an EDH deck with a bunch of creature destruction cards and pump up your commander. If you are playing with an opponent with a bunch of creature out you can use something like Plague Wind to wipe their board. After you destroy their creatures you could easily do 21 commander damage with Kresh the Bloodbraided.

Mayael the Anima would be such a gread EDH commander. I have not made an EDH Deck with Mayael the Anima as my General but it seems like it would be a very promising deck. The ability cost for six is a little expensive but can be easily achieved with green ramp. The ability is awesome because you can look through the top 5 cards and put a creature with power 5 or greater into play. With colors like You can stack your EDH Commander Deck with Eldrazi, Angels, Dragons, and Large Wurms.

Momir Vig, Simic Visionary is basically a commander that tutors for creatures. This Commander would be good with small creatures as you can play several low costing elves like Llanowar Elves or Arbor Elf at the start of the game for mana acceleration. Also you can use Skull Clamp and Mulldrifter and other blue creature spells to constantly draw the creatures you search for. You can put a creature in your deck for almost any occasion and tutor it out into your hand when ever you needed it!

Use Nath of the Gilt-Leaf’s ability and other discard cards like Persecute to keep cards from your opponents hands. Then you can use reanimation cards like Animate Dead to steal your opponents creatures.

Rafiq of the Many is a pretty Beast General just by itself. You can attack for 8 pretty quickly and if you have other creatures out it can do more damage quickly thanks to double strike. Add in spells to make this Commander unblockable like Jhessian Balmgiver and you will be able to do 21 commander damage fairly quickly.

Reaper king is another versatile card because it uses every color in its casting cost. On top of this you can use Scarecrows to destroy your opponents permanents There are not many options for Scarecrow creatures out there but you can play blue spells to bounce Scarecrows back to your hand and play them over again to destroy your opponents board.

Riku of Two Reflections

Riku of Two Reflections

Riku of Two Reflections is an excellent EDH General with endless possibilities for combos. This deck would definitely need to use some mana acceleration and something like Mana Reflection to take full advantage of copy spells. You can make an extra copy of creatures like Avenger of Zendikar for just 2 extra mana to take full advantage of your creatures effects by doubling it. Next turn copy Craterhoof Behemoth and do hundreds of damage! That scenario is a little overkill but my friend used it on me once and it was pretty cool. Also, you can use the copy abilities with cards like Clone and Biovisionary for an easy win. Because Riku has such big combos that can take a lot of setting up I think the EDH deck is best played in a multiplayer game.

Savra, Queen of the Golgari is a good commander to keep your opponent’s creatures off the board. You can use tokens or zombies like Bloodghast and Gravecrawler to sacrifice for Savra, Queen of the Golgari‘s ability. You can keep your opponents creatures off the board by making them sacrifice creatures and then you can Reanimate them for your own use.

Sek’Kuar, Deathkeeper could be a good commander with zombies. You can use Bloodghast or Gravecrawler and a sac outlet to create several tokens every turn The best part about these tokens is they have haste so you can attack immediately and do not have to worry about a board wipe before your tokens can attack.

Sen Triplets as an EDH General is great to steal your opponents cards during your turn. The only problem with this card is you are heavily restricted from what you can play because you can only produce the same color mana as your General. That being said when you are playing with a lot of opponents it would not be hard to find an opponent with these colors. 1 vs 1 playing an opponent with the same colors as yours would be great but this one not give you any advantage against someone playing Green and Red.

Uril, the Miststalker

Uril, the Miststalker

Uril, the Miststalker is the General to use if you want to win with commander damage. This commander is awesome not only is it three colors but it also has hexproof! Hexproof makes it hard for your opponents to kill it and you can use aura’s to pump it up. Attach Holy Mantle to Uril then you have a 9/9 creature your opponents wont be able to block.

Zedruu the Greathearted

Zedruu the Greathearted

Zedruu the Greathearted is a good political EDH Commander worth mentioning. As mentioned in the post about precons using a strategy around his ability could go very wrong. The strategy of this commander would be to give your opponent a card like Steel Golem and stop them from summoning creatures. Unfortunately, a card like Homeward Path could interfere with your strategy. Although, You could let your opponents borrow your lands to help make a political truce. Mainly the strategy around this deck is to catch enough time using pillow cards in order to reach total board control using enchantment combos. Makes a great commander for melee but this deck can be a little too slow for one on one.

Oona, Queen of the Fae is just another EDH commander that would be good for a mill deck. This creature I would say is especially good for a mill deck because it puts out blockers to stop your opponents while you remove cards from their library.

Ulasht, the Hate Seed can be a great versatile General. You can use Ulasht, the Hate Seed’s ability to create tokens, do direct damage to your opponents, or destroy your opponents creatures. Because it uses counters and creates tokens this makes another great combo with Doubling Season. Because of Ulasht’s ability you have a few possible win conditions. You can either pump the +1/ +1 counters up to defeat your opponents with commander damage or you can go the other route and make a token army or by just doing direct damage.

Merieke Ri Berit is a good General to either take control of your opponents creatures or just destroy your opponents creatures. You can use Merieke Ri Berit with Minamo, School at Water’s Edge to untap Merieke to kill a creature then Merieke’s ability to steal another creature. This General is well suited with creatures like Fatestitcher to make the most of of Merieke’s ability.

With Sharuum the Hegemon as your General you can stack your deck with Artifact Creatures to reanimate. You can make a great combo with Phyrexian Metamorph with Sharuum the Hegemon out and kill your opponents with Disciple of the Vault. This EDH Deck Would also work well with Mindslaver and other combos using artifacts with sacrifice abilities.

Sigarda, Host of Herons

Sigarda, Host of Herons

Sigarda, Host of Herons is a good General because it is protected with hexproof and it will also protect your permanents from being sacrificed. Sigarda is probably a good general to use with equipment and enchantments to make it stronger as it is hard to target it.

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind has a great ability but would be best served playing 1v1 rather then multiplayer. The reason I say this deck would work better 1v1 is because you only have one target to choose from with his ability. Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind would be a great deck to stack with draw cards, counter spells, direct damage, and mass damage to creature cards. With the deck build revolving around those types of cards you can play most of your cards on your opponent’s turns using instants so you can keep mana open to destroy your opponents creatures or counter a spell. You can slow down your opponent all while damaging them during your draw phase.

Sapling of Colfenor

Sapling of Colfenor

Sapling of Colfenor is a great commander for a creature heavy deck. Every time you attack Sapling of Colfenor can help you draw an extra card. Sapling’s ability works great with Sylvan Library. The part that really does it for me with this General is the fact that this commander is indestructible making it much harder to kill. Because of the fact Sapling of Colfenor is indestructible it would be a General to win with commander damage by beefing it up with cards like Kamahl, Fist of Krosa and using cards like Damnation to clear the board.

Thraximundar

Thraximundar

Thraximundar is a great commander for a zombie deck. He plays well because he has haste and causes your opponents to sacrifice their creatures and when they do he gets a +1/+1 counter. You can also use a sac engine to sacrifice your own creatures like Gravecrawler to make him stronger. Thraximundar’s mana cost is a little high but you can use low costing Zombies that power each other up like Cemetery Reaper and Death Baron to keep the pressure of you and on to your opponents. You can also use counter spells to help delay the game as well.

Jenara, Asura of War

Jenara, Asura of War

Jenara, Asura of War is a deadly General to win with combat damage. To start out it is powerful by its self being a 3/3 flyer for but once you use its ability to add counters you can make this General big very quickly. You can use Doubling Season with Mirari’s Wake and Mana Reflection along with other green ramp like Skyshroud Claim to make it big quickly. It has a nice advantage because it has flying but if you add a Rancor to give it trample you can win fairly quickly.

More Generals coming soon

This is my full list for EDH commanders if I missed any that would be good please let me know either in the comment section or email me at tc@mtgjunkie.com

Nin the Pain Artist makes a fantastic general in U/R. Low cost and the potential to draw tons of cards and deal out ludicrous amounts of damage while doing it make her dangerous very quickly. Especially when teamed up with stuffy doll and a psychosis crawler.

Oona makes a great commander rather for combo control rather than mill. If you want to run no combos, you only need Oona for your mill because she exiles from the top so Eldrazi shuffling back doesn’t work, and if you run corruption, bitterblossom, and Oona’s blackguard, you can keep your opponents handless and lock down any non-blue decks. Then suppliment your gameplane with draw/fetch, counterspells, some removal and recursion, and some ramp, and you should be set. With Oona, you also don’t want to give your opponents anything, so avoid howling mines, temples bells, and those type of cards. You want as many of your opponent’s cards to be in their libraries so you can exile them.

I didn’t see Rith The Awakener listed in here. He’s definitely better than some of the other dragons listed. Though I see at least two commanders that I intend to use. My Sliver Overlord, and Numot the Devastator.

That’s only if you assume your general should be in its zone and not hanging out in the graveyard waiting for the right moment to strike. especially in 5 colors there is a ton of graveyard recovery to the battlefield (especially in white and black/white). You can also use it as graveyard fodder for effects that remove cards/creatures in your graveyard from play as part of the casting/ability cost.

While that is true, that doesnt mean child is bad. It is fairly easy to reanimate/ exile child from the grave to bring it back. While I don’t personally play a child of alara deck, it can be devastating with cards like Relic of Protogenisis, because… yea it needs a liitle bit of support but your commander having a wrath effect is VERY strong.

Not saying it is the strongest 5 color commander, but it does have something to offer

Godo, Bandit Warlord is a Fantastic general in mono Red, reds two biggest weaknesses are its inability to find answers to problems, and its inability to provide good card advantage. Combined with a lot of artifact ramp Godo can do both of those things and he is a brutal hammer of an attacker to back it up.

Why not Tymaret? There are tons of red cards that steal your opponent’s characters for the turn, ready them, and give them haste. Once you’ve stolen them, and swung them back at their former owners, Tymaret pops them for damage (he can even pop creatures when he’s in the graveyard!). Combine this with Black cards that can then permanently steal that same creature back from your opponent’s graveyard (after Tymaret) popped them and put it in front of you as a creature you control; and you’ve essentially just played your opponents deck against him! It’s great fun!

Also, Tymaret has no Commander Tax as you just allow him to go to the graveyard instead of the Command Zone if he’s killed – then return him with the ability on his text. You’ll never pay more than 2 for him all game long. That’s huge!

Im brand new at the edh format (and the whole tournament thing too) and i was wondering if i would be able to use my jarad golgari lich lord card or not for my commander since i dont see it on the list

You can use any legendary creature you want. This list is more to give people ideas and strategies for different commanders. I can see golgari lich lord being a good commander to use with cards to mill yourself and reanimating the creatures. His ability to sac and deal damage makes for another good win condition if you have trouble doing combat damage also the fact that he gets +1/+1 for creatures in your graveyard can help you win by doing commander damage as well. I suggest playing around with the deck with your friends and find out what strategy suits you.

Both versions of Teysa are missing :I The original Teysa is a combo powerhouse, and the new one is anything but harmless. The Ghost Councils are both powerful as well, though the original works much better as a commander.

I’m new to EDH and got started using a friends deck and won my first game.. i’m really excited to make my own deck but i lack a lot in the strategy department… execution, no problem i can to that. i pretty much only have Blue Red and Black cards i give everything else to the gf or anyone ready to trade.. after looking at the legendary creatures i find that i like Jeleva, Nephalia’s Scourge.. I like and enjoy her play style but i’m not use to exiling cards only milling to the graveyard so i don’t know the ins and outs… any advice tips or anything??

Read the site! Also check out other peoples decks for ideas no harm in putting your own twists and strategy into the deck for me thats what makes it fun but other people may have cards in their decks that you wouldn’t think of!

I have a Mikaeus, the Unhallowed totally incredible deck and using cards like hex and damnation is just incredible with him for getting that extra +1/+1 bump of undying plus he is a zombie with intimidate and gets the bonus of all the great zombie cards like cemetery reaper ect…. IDK I totally love him as my Commander and he deserves a spot over some of those mono black generals Just saying.

Just a point on Kresh…. If built right, it’s MUCH more than 21 point swing…. It’s “I kill you, then you, then you…”. I’ve had my Kresh deck swinging for 80 points of General damage before, repeatedly. I had to take some cards out that gave infinite swings before that deck was allowed back into my playgroup. It’s one of those decks that is either passive aggressive, or all out face to concrete beat down everyone.

Rakdos, Lord of Riots is a good red black commander. Yes you have to deal damage before getting him out, but if you deal enough damage with him, it reduces the colors mana costs of big creatures quickly and you can get them out a whole lot faster than normally summoning them.

Niv Mizzet for 1v1 rather than multiplayer? Do you know Firemind combos off with Curioisity/Ophidian Eye/Mind of Matter? Even Dracogenius is a mana sink whereby you can win the game right off once you get your infinite mana generators.

you can keep repeating it, but it is a pretty expensive combo, starting at 6 mana to deal 2 damage to each opponent and gain 2 life for each opponent. it gets more and more expensive as you go but you dont get any creatures from it. Infinite combo’s have to be free, e.g. infinite mana, infinite damage,

I prefer magister sphinx to the metamorph, often its a one turn kill, play sharuum, return magister, set someones life total to 10 and attack e.g. an unblockable glassdusk hulk. or an archbound crusher etc

also Omnath, Locus of Mana doesn’t get counters it just gets +1/+1 for each mana, this is a big difference in the simic guild that relies on creatures with +1/+1 counters

How is sharuum and phyrexian metamorph not an infinite combo? Sharuum comes in while metamorph is in the grave yard. Sharuum’s ability gets metamorph out of grave and into battlefield as a copy of sharuum. State based actions require you to kill one before the metamorph sharuum’a ability can resolve. Kill sharuum and have new sharuum bring back old sharuum and profit. It creates an infinite loop and with disciple of the vault deals infinite damage. Or you can be a pro and use bitter ordeal since you can make infinite creatures go to the grave. Sounds a lot easier than having to swing and is easily accomplished in a fine tuned deck by turn 3-4 with counter back up

Recently I’ve been using Kresh the Bloodbraided and he’s been an awesome commander. very fun to play. If you can combo him with Doubling Season and Corpsejack Menace you’ll be killing off 3/3’s and putting 12 +1/+1 counters on him. Give him trample with something like Nylea, God of the Hunt and you’ll win from commander damage in a turn or 2.

I run an EDH deck with Oloro, Ageless Ascetic as my general. I think the consistent life gain is a huge benefit on or off the battlefield, seeing as he has a passive ability that remains active while he’s in your command zone. Stack the deck with some extort cards and go for the insta-win with an infinite combo with Exquisite Blood (whenever opponent loses life you gain that much life) and Sanguine Bond (whenever you gain life target opponent loses that much life). I usually finish games with 100-120 life.

Brago, king eternal. Best. Commander. Ever! Think about enchanting him with battle mastery and aqueous form, then have a strionic resonator and a few mana rocks on the battle field. This combo cleans up, think if you have a spine of ish sah or any creatures that gain you life on the battlefield, or alter of the brood. Infinite life, a clear field and several milled out opponents is what you have.

Scion of the Ur Dragon has two amazing one turn kill combos using molten steel dragon as early as turn six: One is you pay two mana to search your library for molten steel dragon, before he resolves pay 10 life to pump scion 5/0, then before it resolves pay another two and search for scourge of the throne. Scion then becomes a 10/5 flyer with dethrone, swing with scion for ten, he gets a 1/1 counter because of dethrone, then scourge of the thrones ability allows you to untapped all creatures and have a second combat phase; this allows you to deal 22 commander damage on turn six. 2: pay two mana with scion to search for molten steel dragon, pay ten life to pump scion 5/0, then before the copy ability resolves pay another two to search for skirathax the blight dragon. Then swing for ten with infect, winning through poison counters. These combos are much better for 1v1 then larger matches, due to the life loss. These are just two combos you can use for scion of the Ur Dragon.

I’ve had a lot of fun with my Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder deck. With his ability to output tokens like nothing, you can play a bunch of sacrifice effects and grave pact effects and win via board attrition.

I’ve sorta fallen in love with mono colored generals, so I have a few I need to mention: Azami, Lady of Scrolls is among the best generals I’ve ever played, since the card advantage she generates is obscene. For a commander that requires less build around, I would suggest Kira, Great Glass Spinner, as she simply makes your mono blue deck harder to deal with. For red I highly recommend Ashling, the Pilgrim, because she can do hilarious things when couple with equipment like Scythe of the Wretched and Loxodon Warhammer, or just by saving her from herself with stuff like Akroma’s Memorial, Darksteel Plate, and Sword of Fire and Ice. Kiki-Jiki is also fun, but your friends will hate you :/. When it comes to green, the most fun I’ve come across is Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro. She makes a stupid amount of mana, and I love the fact that she’s an uncommon. Azusa, Lost but Seeking is another option, but be ready to sell your kidney to build that deck. White has some fun options, like Eight-And-A-Half-Tails, who can build a nice pillow fort, and Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero, who can show the true power of white weenies. My favorite in black has to be Geth, Lord of the Vault, because if black’s many ways of doubling it’s mana production, but a close second goes to Shirei, Shizo’s Caretaker, as it makes your opponents fear the little guys. Non mono colors I like include Kruphix, God of Horizons, Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Borborygmos Enraged, and Sydri, Galvanic Genius. Hope this helped

how about Heartless Hidetsugu i know he’s mono red but you can easily give him haste and deal 20 damage right to their face then win on commander damage with warstorm surge the next time you cast him or chandras outrage or somthing

Deck Building Guide

EDH Commander Deck Building Guide

1. If you do not know the rules for EDH already then make sure you learn them before creating your deck. Click here for EDH Rules.

2. When first building your EDH Deck determining your EDH General helps determine your strategy and what colors you use. Check out the EDH Generals List for ideas.

3. After select your General and know what colors you are using in your EDH Deck you will find that some Magic Cards will work well in most EDH decks with the same colors. Check out the list of EDH Staples.

4. If you are having trouble determining what deck strategy to use for your EDH Deck try looking at other deck with the same EDH General this will also give you an idea of what cards you can use. I suggest checking out http://tappedout.net/ to check out different decks.

5. Also when building an EDH deck many strategies revolve around specific abilities or creature types. The best way to find all the alternatives for these types and abilities is to do some research at http://gatherer.wizards.com/ and use the search function to your advantage.

6. When you are using a Multicolored deck you need to make sure you have a good variation of lands that produce different color mana. Check out some multi colored producing lands.(If you have a monocolored Commander you can skip checking out the multicolored producing lands of course)

7. After you find multicolored producing lands to make sure your mana base is sufficient check out lands that will support your deck strategy.

8.Test your new EDH deck out with your friends to best decide what your deck needs.